Free Republic

Iran has jailed for six and a half years on national security charges an Irish-French citizen held since October, his family said, adding that health problems meant his life was in danger. Bernard Phelan, a Paris-based travel consultant, was arrested in October in the northeastern city of Mashhad and has been held ever since. He is one of some two dozen foreigners jailed in Iran who campaigners see as hostages held to extract concessions from the West.

Interview By: Peter Tase Vakilabad Prison is located in the city of Mashhad in eastern Iran. This prison has reportedly been the site of hundreds of secret executions carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Not only have the executions taken place secretly, but neither the prisoners nor their families were informed prior to their execution. Mr. Ahmed Shaheed, the former UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, has documented more than 300 secret executions in Vakilabad during the past years. Vakilabad Prison is massively overcrowded, which puts the prisoners under severe pressure, with many of...

Reports of a big explosion in Mashhad, Iran. The big explosion was heard in surrounding areas

Just ahead of U.S. sanctions on Iran set to snap back on Monday targeting primarily the energy, shipbuilding, shipping, and banking sectors, Iran’s most prominent conservative cleric has announced that if oil exports are halted, Saudi tankers will be confiscated and Gulf countries attacked. Powerful Shia cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda is the Friday Prayer leader in Mashhad, considered Iran’s spiritual capital and among the holiest places in Shia Islam, and sits on the government’s “Assembly of Experts” but has no formal government role or decision-making ability. However, he’s a powerful leader and chief spiritual force behind Iran’s conservative faction who...

TEHRAN, Iran – The website of Iran's Revolutionary Guard is reporting that a general who fought in Syria and Iraq has allegedly accidentally killed himself while cleaning a gun. Gen. Ghodratollah Mansouri allegedly shot himself in the head by accident while cleaning his pistol, according to the Sunday report. The report added that Mansouri was veteran of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war and a "defender of the shrine," a reference to Iranians who fight against the extremist Islamic State (ISIS) group in Syria and Iraq. Since 2014, Mansouri was a regional commander of the Guard's ground forces in the northeastern city...

On Monday Oct 8.2018 , merchants in several Iranian cities went on strike and refused to open for business in an extension of ongoing protests against the regime of Tehran. The strike, which was preplanned and widely distributed across social media channels, is in protest to increasing prices and high inflation rates. The protest movement comprises 25 of Iran’s major cities Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, commended the brave bazaar merchants and shopkeepers in Tehran and dozens of other Iranian cities who are on strike against the mullahs' corrupt regime. She said that the bazaar strike, coming...

Videos posted on social media show demonstrators chanting 'death to Rouhani'.

Cotton Statement on Iranian Protests December 28, 2017 Washington, D.C. - Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) today released the following statement on the protests against the Iranian regime in the city of Mashhad: "Even after the billions in sanctions relief they secured through the nuclear deal, the ayatollahs still can't provide for the basic needs of their own people-perhaps because they've funneled so much of that money into their campaign of regional aggression in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen. The protests in Mashhad show that a regime driven by such a hateful ideology cannot maintain broad popular support forever, and we...

Protests held in the cities of Yazd, Mashhad, Shahrood, Kashmar numbering in the thousands. They are demonstrating against high prices, unemployment, and the gov't spending money & lives in their involvement in Lebanon & Syria. None of the protests were in Tehran. This video is a compilation of protests. "Protesters were heard chanting 'Death to Rouhani' and 'Death to the dictator'"

Pair Are Plotting Attacks, Sources Say JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Aug. 27 – Two figures who have assumed critical roles in the al Qaeda hierarchy in recent months, including one reported dead by the Pentagon, are being sheltered in Iran along with dozens of other al Qaeda fighters in hotels and guesthouses in the border cities of Mashhad and Zabol, according to Arab intelligence sources.The two – Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian on the FBI's most-wanted list, and Mahfouz Ould Walid, also known as Abu Hafs the Mauritanian, whom U.S. officials reported had been killed near the eastern Afghan city of Khost...

The phenomenon of Christians worshipping at home concerns the regime and the number of arrests for converting from Islam to Christianity has increased. The government of Tehran is launching a new offensive against the so-called home churches, small groups of Christians who meet in private houses to celebrate their faith because they cannon join the Churches officially recognised (and controlled) by the State, Iranian Christian news agency Mohabat reports. Khorasan, a government journal has published a long statement by Bahman Amiri Moghaddam, chief of police for the Khorasa-Ravi province, in which he says security forces “had taken care of a...

Iranian authorities have hanged another 30 prisoners at Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad on drug-related charges, says the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. The campaign cites “local knowledgeable sources” saying 12 prisoners were executed on Wednesday June 29 and another 18 were hanged on the following Sunday. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran say the executions once again were carried out in secret and en masse, with no prior notification of families and attorneys and no official announcement from the judiciary. The report indicates that on June 29, the judiciary announced the execution of one convicted murderer...

RESIDENTS at certain addresses in the Gaza Strip have been receiving unusual phone calls since the Israeli air assault began on Saturday - a request that they and their families leave their homes as soon as possible for their own safety.

<p>TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iranian state TV reported 80 people were killed when their passenger plane caught fire as it was landing Friday in Mashhad, northeastern Iran.</p> <p>The fire began after a tire blew out as the aircraft was landing, television reported.</p>

GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 2/22/04 - Mashhad, Qom, Tehran, Archangelsk, Meridiani Planum, Plesetsk cosmodrome, Fallujah BREAKING: Mashhad, Iran - deserted polling for the fixed election BREAKING: Tehran, Iran - A visit to terrorists BREAKING: 'Archangelsk' - Putin at the failed demonstration BREAKING: Meridiani Planum, Mars - US technology rocks QFN ==== QUAGMIRE-FREE NEWS Exclusive to FReerepublic PICTURES YOU MAY NEVER SEE IN THE GENERAL MEDIA ========= Mashhad ========= BREAKING: FIXED ELECTIONS In Mashhad, Iran, a deserted public polling station in a boycott after the conservative [Iranian Conservative = American leftist] Islamic theocracy banned ~2,400 candidates.Only the...

TEHRAN, April 16 (AFP) - The convicted serial killed of 16 prostitutes in city of Mashhad in 2000 and 2001 was hanged at dawn on Wednesday, IRNA reported. Saeed Hanai, who confessed to killing women ranging in age from 20 to 50 and all with drugs and prostitution records, is to be executed inside Mashhad prison. The serial killer strangled his victims with a scarf before abandoning their bodies around the northeastern city. Prostitution, a thriving industry under the former shah but banned after the 1979 Islamic revolution, has been making a comeback as Iran experiences unemployment and economic woes....